Whether you’re waiting for your favorite show to come on TV, some wet paint to dry, or that chicken parmesan to finish cooking in the oven, we all need to use a countdown for helping us wait for something throughout regular life. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPad has such a feature built right in, and thanks to our favorite digital assistant, Siri makes setting a timer in iOS about as simple as it can possibly be.

Read more »

Every app in the iWork suite offers optional password protection of files created, modified, or opened within their respective application. In practice, this means that no user will be able to open or access the file and view the contents on their Mac or iOS device without entering the password first. Password protecting iWork documents offers a great way to add some additional security or privacy to important files, and using the feature is made simple in any of the iWork apps in OS X, whether Pages, Keynote, or Numbers.

Read more »

Apple will release revisions to the iPad Air and iPad Mini in the coming months, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

Read more »

Apple has started to air two new iPad commercials on TV, following in the same “Verse” theme that was introduced some time ago with the iPad Air. Both videos emphasize how the iPad and great apps supplement the activities and work of individuals, and are embedded below for easy viewing.

Read more »

Did you know you can start printing any file directly from the desktop of a Mac? While most users open a file and then print it from the application of which the file was built in, that’s not actually necessary, instead printing can be initiated from anywhere in the Finder of OS X. This often overlooked feature is incredibly convenient and it really speeds up the process of printing a document or picture, as it prevents having to open any apps. Instead, you just locate the document in the file system and start printing directly from there.

Read more »

When you set up a new Mail account in Mac OS X, you typically enter the service provider, email address, and the email accounts password once, then everything just works, right? Well, generally, but sometimes things aren’t so simple, and a frustrating issue that some users encounter is Mail app repeatedly asking for their password, over and over again. This can show up either as a pop-up window requesting the password be entered again with the message “Enter Password for Account (Name)”, or in the Connection Doctor feature of the Mac Mail app where it says the account verification or login failed, and to try again.

Read more »

Apple rumors are in high gear right now, with the iPhone 6 launch date just under a month away, the next generation iPad coming sometime in October, and the iWatch apparently arriving that same month too. Rather than taking things too seriously, let’s take a lighter look at the Apple obsession with these three videos poking fun at Apple rumors and fans alike.

These hilarious skits include Jimmy Kimmel ripping the iWatch and Apple brand loyalty, Conan O’Brien poking at the iPad and DIY projects, and a YouTube guy with a total junker iPhone 6 clone who convinces people it’s the real deal. Who doesn’t like some Apple fun and a good laugh? Enjoy!

Read more »

This week we’re featuring the Mac workstation of James B., an Integrations Developer who has a great home office with an excellent view behind his desk. Let’s jump in and learn a bit more about this Mac setup and how it’s used:

Read more »

When you point your iPhone or iPad at a web address (like osxdaily.com), iOS will perform a DNS lookup to send you to the proper location. DNS servers handle part of that lookup service, translating numerical IP addresses into the readable domain names we’re all more familiar with and associate with web sites and other internet addresses. Most internet service providers provide their own DNS servers, but let’s be honest, they’re not always the fastest, thus you can sometimes speed up your internet service or even resolve some networking issues by changing DNS settings to another set of servers. Changing the DNS settings in iOS are what we’re going to cover here, and the process is the same on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Read more »

Adjusting the Preferences and Settings of Mac apps is common and often a necessity to get things just right for you, particularly if you’re using an app for the first time, or setting up a new Mac. Rather than fish around in the menu items to find the Preferences or Settings menu option, you can almost always rely on a specific keyboard shortcut to instantly launch into the Preferences for a given Mac OS X app.

Read more »

Ever needed to reboot an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that doesn’t have a functioning power button or a Home button? It’s tricky if not impossible, right? Even with the Assistive Touch on-screen buttons and variety of workarounds for a failed power button, rebooting an iOS device without working hardware buttons is a challenge, but it turns out that a few indirect tricks can work to get restart any iOS device, even if none of the physical buttons are working.

We’ll cover two quick and easy methods to reboot any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch – without having to use the hardware buttons at all. These methods rely on toggling software settings that initiate a soft reboot to the device, which means even if your physical buttons are completely malfunctioning, you can still restart a device if it’s necessary to.

Read more »

From time to time, Apple will offer free out-of-warranty repair services for devices and hardware that are determined to be dysfunctional or defective. For example, many users experienced the failure of their iPhone 5 lock / power button, and Apple later determined that some of the devices manufactured were susceptive to power button failure, thus beginning the iPhone 5 Sleep / Wake Button replacement program. I sent my own iPhone 5 in for service to take advantage of that free repair, and I’m very glad I did.

Read more »

The Microsoft Word document format is widely used in many corporate and educational environments, particularly where the Windows platform is dominant. For Mac users who work with the Pages app for word processing, a simple option to improve cross-platform document readability and compatibility is to save (or export) a Pages file as a Word .doc or .docx file. Fortunately, the Pages app makes saving as Word files very easy, and there are several compatibility choices available during the export process.

Read more »

Tab Navigation is a feature of OS X that allows Mac users to navigate around active windows and dialog boxes with the Tab key, rather than the cursor. It functions very similarly to how using the tab key in most web browsers and Windows will skip between onscreen elements, and it’s a handy feature for advanced users and newcomers to the Mac alike.

Read more »

Apple will launch the iPhone 6 at an event scheduled for Tuesday, September 9, according to the consistently reliable and well sourced Re/Code (formerly WSJ’s All Things Digital), Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.

Read more »

Though many Mac users don’t use iCloud for their primary document storage, those users who do know that the iCloud document browser found within an Open or Save dialog box window can become cluttered with files rather quickly. A simple solution is to make folders for the iCloud documents, which is easy to do but not the most obvious thing in the world.

Unlike creating a standard folder in OS X with a keyboard shortcut or Finder action, doing so in iCloud is a bit different, behaving more like making a folder in Launchpad or even iOS.
Read more »

OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 5 has been released to developers who are in the Mac Developer Program. The latest build is “recommended for all users” and focuses on bug fixes and improvements to the developer build of OS X. The build number is 14A314h.

Read more »

Apple has released iOS 8 beta 5 for compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. The latest build focuses primarily on bug fixes and improvements to iOS 8, and marches the beta release ever closer to the final public version, which is expected sometime this fall.

Read more »